OULTREMONT, EMILIE D’, BL.

In religion, Mother Mary of Jesus, also called Baroness Emilie Olympe Marie Antoinette van der Linden d'Hooghvorst, married woman, missionary, and foundress of the Society of Mary Reparatrix; b. Wégimont, Liège, Belgium, Oct. 11, 1818; d. Florence, Tuscany, Italy, Feb. 22, 1878. Emilie was the daughter of Count d'Oultremont of Liège, who was later (1840) the Belgian minister to the Holy See. At age nineteen she was married to Baron Victor van der Linden d'Hooghvorst and bore him four children before his early death ten years later (1847). Her family wanted her to remarry, but the baroness made a vow of chastity. Two of her daughters— Mother Mary of St. Victor (1843–72) and Mother Mary of St. Julienne (1846–67)—assisted her in the foundation of the Society of Mary Reparatrix. Under the spiritual direction of the jesuits, particularly that of Paul Ginhac (1824–95), the society was canonically established in Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, in 1857. The following year she took the name Mary of Jesus and made her first vows together with her daughters and eight other companions. The mission of the society is "to make known the tenderness of God's love for the world, to follow Jesus as Mary did, and to collaborate with Him in His mission of Redemption-Reparation." Her relics are enshrined in the Church of Santa Croce e San Bonaventura in Rome. She was beatified on Oct. 12, 1997 by Pope John Paul II.

Feast: Oct. 11

Bibliography: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, no. 20 (1997): 999. L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, no. 42 (1997): 1–2, 12. Emilie d'Oultremont, Baroness d'Hooghvorst, Foundress of the Society of Mary Reparatrix and Her Two Daughters (London 1932). In the Silence of Mary: The Life of Mother Mary of Jesus (London 1964). c. couvreur, Témoignage pour tous les temps, vie, esprit, oeuvre d'Emilie d'Oultremont, fondatrice de la Société de Marie Réparatrice (Toulouse 1967). v. delaporte, The Society of Marie Reparatrice (Montreal 1919). p. suau, The life of Mother Mary of Jesus, Emilia d'Oultremont, Baroness d'Hooghvorst (London 1913).

[k. i. rabenstein]